It is so easy to forget now. A decade ago, iPods were rare, Twitter had not been conceived and photographs were taken with cameras. We don’t remember such a world, so we surely do not remember when the United States was being pounded in important basketball competitions by Puerto Rico and Yugoslavia.

That’s right: a country that’s not a country, and a country that no longer exists. They kicked American tail at the game this nation invented, perfected and ruled for 70 years.

Mike Krzyzewski changed all that. Well, he and Jerry Colangelo. After the Americans had been embarrassed on their home soil in the 2002 FIBA World Championships (finishing sixth) and then embarrassed themselves with a disjointed, dysfunctional bronze-medal effort at the 2004 Olympic Games, Colangelo and Krzyzewski were appointed to change the culture of USA Basketball.

To say they succeeded is to say “The Godfather” is a good movie.

Since they teamed up and began approaching the best American players about investing in the cause, the U.S. has won 62 of 63 games against international competition. There has not been a defeat in seven years, since a second-half collapse against Greece in the semifinals of the 2006 Worlds. With Krzyzewski on the bench, the U.S. earned the gold medal at the 2008 Olympics, the 2010 Worlds and the 2012 Olympics.

It seemed after the latter triumph that Krzyzewski, 66, would be finished with the program. He still had a full-time job at Duke, and he’d done what he set out to do. He said before the Olympics in London that he wouldn’t return, and he reiterated that in February in an interview with ESPN radio:

“My stance hasn’t changed,” Krzyzewski said. “I’ve loved, loved, loved and it’s been an honor being with the USA Basketball team, to coach the team and work with Jerry. These seven years have been marvelous. We’re in a good spot. We need to keep building.”

But after some reconsideration, he has decided to return, and this should be greeted as exciting news by fans of American basketball, not with more petty jealousy among fans of Duke’s rival schools.

He has had a phenomenal impact on America’s international basketball pursuits. The two Olympic golds Krzyzewski’s teams won were claimed with a roster fronted by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Krzyzewski took a younger team led by Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose to the Worlds and won there, too.

The effect on the entire USA Basketball culture has been to convince younger talents of the importance of competing on national teams, something that long has been important in other nations but had fallen out of favor here. The U.S. stormed to the first two FIBA U17 World Championships, with such gifted young players as Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Bradley Beal, Jabari Parker and Tyus Jones among those competing. The U.S. won at the 2009 FIBA U19 Worlds, as well.

What Krzyzewski and Colangelo accomplished wasn’t easy, and wasn’t unimportant. And it should not be regarded simply as some sort of ploy by Krzyzewski to pursue a recruiting advantage on behalf of the Duke Blue Devils.

If he needs a recruiting advantage, he already can tell prospects he coached the core of the Miami Heat’s championship team, and that’s if he needs to do more than simply point to the four NCAA championship banners at Cameron Indoor Stadium and the manicured campus of the elite university he represents.

By agreeing to coach the U.S. senior national team, Krzyzewski chose to invest a great deal his personal time and energy into elevating the American game. That he is ready to do it for another several years is a victory for every U.S. basketball fan, even those who prefer a different shade of blue to go with their red and white.